Strategy Services

We guide organizations in choosing a path forward that will lead to greater program impact and organizational performance

LFA brings insight, practicality, and customization to our strategy engagements. We share your desire for results, and we use strategy-setting and strategy-monitoring as powerful levers for impact.

We help organizations choose a path forward that will lead to greater impact, then design and implement the tools that enable:

LFA guides you to develop systems and practices to draw insights from data when important organizational decisions need to be made

Generally, it is inefficient and ineffective to start strategic planning each time from scratch. LFA's approach to strategy emphasizes building enduring organizational systems for learning that can inform ongoing strategy development and refinement.

We employ Theory of Change – the blueprint for impact – as the basis for strategy engagements. With clarity about desired outcomes and an organization’s role in creating them, it is possible to confidently plan and, more importantly, implement a clearly defined strategy.

Our Process

While each strategy development process is unique, all of our engagements involve four phases:

Phase 1: Develop (or Clarify) Theory of Change. LFA will spend one to two sessions with program leadership and organizational decision-makers to help your organization define the critical components of its change model. Our process ensures that your Theory of Change sets the stage for establishing priorities, helps you craft effective strategy, and ultimately provides a roadmap for learning.

Phase 2: Assess Current Performance. LFA will lead your organization through a systematic process of assessing organizational performance, program impact, and adaptability to the changing environment. This process will help your organization understand what is most important to address in each of these domains.

Phase 3: Develop Organizational & Program Strategy. LFA tailors how the strategy development process looks for each organization based on their goals and strategic imperatives. We will work with you to make intentional choices about where to focus within the set of opportunities identified in Phase 1.

LFA has worked through this process with organizations of different sizes, at varying stages of lifecycle development, and with different strategic imperatives at the start of the planning process.

Phase 4: Plan for Implementation & Develop Learning Systems: An LFA-crafted implementation plan clearly articulates your strategies, and identifies for each strategy a set of tactics that have timelines, responsible parties, progress indicators, and costs. LFA will work with your organization to design learning systems and practices, including:

Practical measurement tools (such as surveys or interview protocols)

Systems for collecting and analyzing the data you capture; and

Learning processes that ensure that the right data are produced at the right times for the right decision-making bodies.

Equipped with short-term strategies, a set of metrics, and systems for learning about progress toward your desired outcomes, you will have all the key attributes of a high-performing organization!